Film Review: Nosferatu

Nosferatu
Director: Robert Eggers
Maiden Voyage Pictures, Studio 8, Birch Hill Road Entertainment
In Theaters: 12.25

Vampire and German cinema fans rejoice, the monster has risen once again. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Robert Eggers that could revive the near century-dead Nosferatu from his tomb. Eggers’ deft hand and love for some of Western mythology’s most iconic evils are present in each of his projects, from Prometheus in The Lighthouse to the devil himself in The VVitch, and it made tackling the original big-screen vampire a no-brainer. It’s so natural a fit that Eggers had originally chosen Nosferatu to be his second ever full-length project, though the original project was waylaid to the point where eager fans thought it would never see the light of day. 

A young estate agent, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult, The Menu, Mad Max: Fury Road) has just married the love of his life, Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp, The Idol, The King) who, unbeknownst to Thomas, has been fostering a supernatural romance with the mysterious Romanian Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård, It, The Crow). Thomas’ boss Herr Knock (Simon McBurney, The Last King of Scotland, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy) arranges for him to travel to a remote Transylvanian castle to settle the sale of a German manor to Count Orlok. Once there, Thomas becomes the unwilling vessel and tool in Orlok’s hunt to claim Ellen’s love and life. While Thomas is away, Ellen, who is staying with friends Anna (Emma Corrin, Deadpool & Wolverine, Lady Chatterley’s Lover) and Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kraven the Hunter, Kick-Ass), is overcome with nightmares that see her shake uncontrollably, levitate and commune through visions of Orlok’s inevitable arrival to Germany to claim Ellen as his own. Friedrich calls on the aid of Dr. Wilhelm Siever (Ralph Ineson, The VVitch, The First Omen), who finds himself powerless to bring Ellen out of her supernatural affliction, leaving him with no choice but to request the aid of his mentor and vilified occultist Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe, Poor Things, Spider-Man). The professor instantly recognizes Ellen’s supernatural affliction and, with the help of Thomas (who only barely escaped Orlok’s clutches), the Hardings and Dr. Siever, schemes a way to end the Count’s hold over her. In a midnight vision, Orlok gives Ellen three nights to swear herself to him before he will claim the lives of all those she holds dear. 

Nosferatu, the original film and narrative, is an odd story to adapt because of its intentional similarity to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a tale that has been told an endless amount of times. How do you differentiate a story that is essentially a rip-off? The great Werner Herzog took a stab (or a stake?) at the copyright-infringing original with 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre. That film, too, can be just as unapproachable as F. W. Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. Well, Eggers’ Nosferatu is a notably grimmer narrative that doesn’t end with a heroic stake-through-the-heart victory and thus keeps audiences in rapt attention all the way to the final shot. Eggers highlights numerous differences between the characters of Dracula and Count Orlok, most notably that the latter is far less a polished old aristocrat and more of a wild, conniving ancient ruler. His final appearance has been intentionally hidden from prospective movie-goers with promo material depicting the Count cloaked in shadow, his face fully in darkness. The same is true in the film — the audience is kept in the dark (literally) on Orlok’s appearance. Flashes of his fur coat, long, ring-adorned fingers and imposingly tall figure are all that the viewer is shown until quite late into the film, when he finally walks out of the shadow and into the moonlight. 

There is an unending list of praise I could give this film: the actors’ individual performances, the scene-setting shots placed so meticulously like vast paintings, the switch from washed-out, color saturated scenes to inky black and white and the phenomenal shadow work that seamlessly projects Orlok’s silhouette onto blowing curtains or against the far background walls and windows. Depp is truly transformative in the role of Ellen Hutter and is, at times, the sole motor for entire scenes. The same can be said for Skarsgård in the titular role, whose gravelly voice fills the theater with a haunting echo. The initial meeting between Thomas Hutter and Orlok is one of the most chilling sequences I’ve witnessed in a long time and the uneasy chemistry between Depp and Skarsgård is truly skin crawling—it creates scenes that are nearly hard to watch. In Nosferatu, Eggers is a more conventional storyteller than he has previously been known to be. And while there are no huge surprises, like in The VVitch or The Lighthouse, Eggers manages to keep the audience wrapped around his finger all the way through the two-hour feature. –wphughes 

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